


Before They Were Wicked

by MedieavalBeabe



Category: Disney Villains
Genre: Disney, Gen, parallel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-16
Updated: 2013-09-16
Packaged: 2017-12-26 18:53:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/969089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MedieavalBeabe/pseuds/MedieavalBeabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before the Disney villains were introduced in their respective tales, surely they must have had stories of their own to tell?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before They Were Wicked

Cruella Smith lay on the edge of her mother’s bed, lazily reclining as she flicked through a fashion magazine. She was wrapped in her mother’s favourite old fake fur coat (the only kind of fur the family could afford, much to their chagrin) and wore her mother’s favourite red elbow-length gloves, although they sagged on her twig-like arms. She held a pen between her index and middle finger like a cigarette as she flipped greedily through the pages of the magazine. 

“Renowned furrier Mr Neville De Vil has done it yet again with this year’s spring collection that combines leather and silk with furs from all over the globe,” Cruella read. She longed for a real fur of her own, mink perhaps, or tiger or bear, the softer the better. 

That was when her mother came into the room. “Cruella, what are you doing in my coat?”

“Pretending it’s real fur,” sighed Cruella. She was only eight years old but she could imagine well enough what it was like to own a real fur coat. She held up the magazine page she was reading, which showed a blonde model with a three inch waist dressed in a white cocktail dress lined with black and white tiger fur. “Aren’t they glamorous, Mother?”

Her mother smiled, fondly, as she unwrapped her fur coat from her daughter. “I know, darling. Marry a rich man and then he can buy you all the furs you want, real or fake.”

“I can do one better than that,” Cruella said. “It says here Neville De Vil has a son.”

Her mother laughed. “Oh, sweetie! How would you expect to meet such a person living where we do?”

Cruella shrugged as she peeled off the gloves. “I’d find a way.”

Her mother, thinking she was only joking, humoured her, but she ought to have known that once Cruella had an idea in her head, she would follow it through, even if it killed her. 

Cruella was not unattractive, although her pasty skin was questionable and her hair sometimes hung lank, but she was determined not to be put off. One way or another she was going to get hold of Herman De Vil.

Her chance came when she was nineteen. She had once again borrowed her mother’s old fur coat, although now it was tatty and moth-eaten, and red gloves. She was wearing a pair of pointed toed red high heels that she had bought second hand in a charity shop and even her cigarette holder was vintage. Perhaps it was this mix of old and new that attracted her to the attentions of one Carmen Gomez, a top fashion photographer looking for a new image for her magazine. 

“Oh, my!” she exclaimed, seeing Cruella trotting down the side of the Thames, and then she hurried up to her. “Excuse me, miss?”

“Yes?” said Cruella, turning. “What is it?”

“Would you mind if I took some photos of you for my magazine, Walkway?”

Cruella felt her jaw drop. She knew that Walkway was quite big in the fashion industry. “Not at all,” she smiled, posing for her. 

Carmen took photo after photo, and then slipped a card into Cruella’s hand. “You know, I think you have the new image we’re looking for at Walkway. Drop by the studio tomorrow and we can talk.”

So, the very next day, Cruella went down to the studio, and, after posing a couple of times in various outfits they made her try on, the editors made their decision. “She’s perfect,” they declared. “We’ve found the new face of Walkway.”

Of course, Carmen wanted something about Cruella to strike people the second they picked up the magazine, so she had the idea of dying half of her hair white and leaving the other half black. 

“Like a Dalmatian!” Cruella laughed. “Proceed!”

Walkway became more popular than ever with Cruella as the new face of it, and it quickly fell to the attentions of one Neville De Vil. 

“Son, put down your breakfast,” he said to Herman. “We’ve got a fashion show to get to.”

The fashion show in question was taking place on an outdoor walkway in Hyde Park, and their only model was, of course, the renowned Cruella De Vil. Now in her early twenties, Cruella had become quite a celebrity. The money she had made from modelling bought her a fancy apartment in the heart of London, although she really dreamed of owning some kind of mansion in the suburbs or the country, filled with furs by the dozen. She had replaced her mother’s old fake fur coat with a new one, but it could never be as good as the real thing, of course.

Neville and his son Herman sat in the audience as Cruella modelled outfit after outfit and was applauded and photographed a great many times, until finally the show was brought to a conclusion. Of course, a lot of the reporters attending wanted an interview with her afterwards. 

“Miss Smith, how does it feel being pulled up from the poorest parts of London into the heart of the fashion industry and becoming a world renowned icon?” 

“Did you say world renowned? I had no idea! Well, darling, in answer to your question, it feels wonderful!”

“Miss Smith, is it true you’re thinking about going into designing for yourself?”

“Yes, darling. I do so love experimenting with fashion, particularly in the fur industry.”

Neille De Vil pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “Miss Smith?”

“Yes?” She looked up and then stared at him. “Mr...De Vil, am I right?”

“Oh, yes indeed, Madame. I was going to ask you whether you might consider possibly taking up a post at my magazine, as model or designer, whichever you prefer?”

“Working with furs?” 

“Yes, the real kind now, none of this fake stuff.”

Cruella gave him a red-lipstick smile. “I’d be delighted, Mr De Vil.”

So it was that she became a designer at his magazine. “Chinchilla fur, mink, tiger, leopard...I am in heaven,” she sighed, rubbing one sample against her face. 

Soon she became inspired not only to design outfits with fur added to them, but also to design fur coats and stoles and hats. One design that took her fancy was a black and white spotted fur coat she dreamed up whilst watching her friend Anita taking her dog Perdita for a walk. Soon she became obsessed with making it, but no other animal they took fur from had the same kind of fur as Dalmatians and she was never satisfied. 

“Dad’s really impressed by your designs,” Herman told her, nervously, one day. 

Cruella sighed, frustratedly. “If only I could make this design,” she stabbed at the Dalmatian puppy fur coat, “perfect! I’ve tried with white jaguars, white leopards, anything with spots, but it still isn’t right! It has to be Dalmatian fur!”

“Well, we can’t go around skinning Dalmatians, can we?” chuckled Herman, nervously. 

She glanced at him. “No, I suppose not.” Not legally, anyway. 

Her mood improved when Herman proposed, rather nervously to her. Of course, Cruella wasn’t what you’d call in love with him, but she thought he was rather nice looking and good at being ordered around and she had always said she would marry Herman De Vil, so, marry Herman De Vil she did. And as a wedding gift, he bought her a great may fur coats and stoles that lined the wardrobes of an entire room at Hell Hall. 

She told him once about her friend Anita, whose Dalmatian had been the source of inspiration for her puppy coat design. “Poor girl, she married a songwriter, but he’s hardly going to be able to support her, with two dogs as well!”

Herman agreed, doggedly, as he always did with anything she had to say. 

The marriage was comfortable, if not romantic, but it was not to last. Disaster seemed to plague the De Vil household after that. Firstly the company got into trouble with animal rights protesters who accused Neville De Vil of illegally acquiring animals (i.e. stealing them from zoos or protected safari parks in foreign countries, shipping them back over to Britain and skinning them) for their fur. Of course, a few of the rumours were true, but they had no way or proving so. Nevertheless, it seriousl damaged the company and De Vil’s reputation. Magazine and fashion sales went down, and soon after, Neville followed, drowning his sorrows in alcohol and cigarettes until he died. 

Shortly afterwards, Herman followed, after being diagnosed with a painful illness for which there was no cure. Cruella felt rather glum about this. True, she wasn’t in love with Herman, but he was her husband and they had made a life together and she didn’t particularly want to be on her own. And she did had a kind of affection for him and it was painful to watch him struggle along in pain. Like a wounded animal that people would shoot for it’s own good, she thought. 

“Cruella,” he said one day as they were sitting in the living room of Hell Hall. 

“Yes, darling?” Cruella cooed, pottering away at her drawing table. 

“If that Dalmatian coat means that much to you, I want you to have it.”

She frowned. “How? We can’t possibly use real Dalmatian fur.”

“Not legally.” Herman gave her a wicked smile. “But it’s your dream and you should do whatever it takes to get it.”

“Darling, you’re wonderful!” Cruella gave him a hug, against her better nature. 

Herman died, leaving Hell Hall and everything in it to his wife. After his burial, Cruella really took what he had told her to heart and decided that whatever happened she would have her Dalmatian fur coat. 

But where did one acquire so many Dalmatians? She’d need a hundred at least. 

The answer came when she heard that Anita’s dog was expecting puppies. “Well, well, well,” she mused. “Time I paid her a little visit.”

But Anita’s damn adamant husband refused to sell the fifteen puppies to her. Annoyed and enraged, Cruella swept from the house, but she did not go home. No, she went instead to one of the seedier parts of town where two crooks she knew of named Jasper and Horace Baddun lived. 

“Kidnap all fifteen of those Dalmatian puppies and as many others as you can lay your hands on,” she told them, “and I will make sure you’re both well paid. When you’re done, bring them all to Hell Hall. I need to be in my apartment in London, but let me know when the job’s done.”

“Yes, Madame!” they both said. 

Well, the rest, as they say, is history.


End file.
